


Genius

by MiddleTownDreams



Series: Prompts and Drabbles [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Mathematics, autistic Zoro, based off a true story, nerd!Zoro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 18:17:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4402289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiddleTownDreams/pseuds/MiddleTownDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So kumiko-sama-chan on tumblr posted this post asking someone to write an “AU in which Zoro is an awkward and angry but brilliant mathematician who falls in love with Sanji because he finds the Fibonacci Sequence in his eyebrow.”<br/>So I did<br/>and then she did, and it's much better so go read hers on ff.net, it's called The Golden Spiral by Kumiko Hasegawa</p>
            </blockquote>





	Genius

**Author's Note:**

> So kumiko-sama-chan on tumblr posted this post asking someone to write an “AU in which Zoro is an awkward and angry but brilliant mathematician who falls in love with Sanji because he finds the Fibonacci Sequence in his eyebrow.”
> 
> I saw it and forced myself to ignore it. Then as I was doing my math homework (functions, really not related at all) this ripped its way thought my head. 
> 
> I probably just ruined the prompt, I’m sorry
> 
> A lot of Zoro’s past is based on a YouTube video my math teacher showed us last year. It’s pretty much about this 13 year old boy who is a math genius and is studying at university, and it’s true. Look it up.

“Why is he so angry all the time?” The girl sighed, leaning across the table to whisper not so subtly to Nami. The red head shrugged and waved her arms dramatically, “He’s just far more superior to the rest of us”  


The girl giggled and Zoro rolled his eyes, the girl, whatever her name was, had been making passes at him last week before she gave up and ended up chatting with Nami about girl things. Thankfully she ended up leaving him alone, but decided to cling to Nami. Which meant she ended up at his table.  


“Oh! Did you hear about…” Zoro let their nonsense fade away as he turned back to his book, sword history wasn’t anything compared to math, but it was good enough. When you had learnt all there was to know in a certain subject, you got bored. And Zoro was bored. Very bored.  


Zoro was what many people considered a genius. He could look at a math problem and figure it out in seconds. And it wasn’t just math, really he was brilliant at anything to do with numbers, every number or math problem he’d ever heard was permanently lodged in his brain. He could recite pi to the 1000th term, after an afternoon memorising when he had been sixteen and bored, and he could even recite it backwards.  


It was probably the reason he’d been invited to his friends parties, hell it might have been the reason he even had friends. He knew he was lucky, not everyone born and diagnosed with autism had people skills, even people skills as limited as his. But his friends didn’t mind his awkwardness or his rude, blunt way of speaking. Over time they had gotten used to it, and they even sat with him while he did his math. His friends loved it, especially Nami, who’d gotten quite rich off of bets on Zoro’s math skills. He could even sing the Periodic Table song perfectly.  


Why did he do it? For fun. His memory was impeccable, he could memorise everything and anything. The one flaw was his sense of direction. Place a piece of paper in front of him with a complex vectors question and he could answer it in five seconds flat. Put him on a street and tell him where to go… well that didn’t work out as well. Math, chemistry and numbers were as easy as breathing to him, places and directions? Not so much.  


When he had been young he’d started to almost curl into himself, it was like he was living in a separate world. He was not a loud toddler to begin with, but he stopped speaking all together and would not make eye contact with anyone. He’d then been diagnosed with autism. After wasting time with all sorts of therapy’s meant to help him, his parents had finally realized he wasn’t happy unless he was working on math and science. He’d already been showing signs of a high IQ, and starting elementary school didn’t change that. He got bored with the math they forced him to do in elementary school, and by 3rd grade his parents finally entered him in an evening college course. His uncle had gone along with him, watching over him during that class and driving him to and from the college campus. When he was in 5th grade he dropped out of public school.  


When he was ten, he taught himself every part of the syllabus of high school math. In a week.  


By twelve he was being paid to do research. Not bad considering people thought it had been his uncle taking the classes, when the man had been there only to accompany his young nephew. Now he was teaching and researching, and happier than he could ever be.  


Most of his autistic symptoms disappeared, he was a regular person, just an insanely smart and determined person. Sadly, one thing he still hadn’t grasped was the social part of being human.  


“Really he isn’t a big fan of talking to other people, but then again, with his level of intelligence, it’s like he’s talking to a bunch of five year olds, so I don’t blame him one bit. I mean, he’s still a great guy, you just have to give him some time to get used to you.” He could hear Usopp explaining to someone as they walked. Zoro sighed and closed his book, there was no way he’d be able to get anymore reading done with the rest of the group joining them for lunch, and evidently the new person Usopp was politely explaining him to. Poor guy was in for a rude awakening when he actually met him.  


“Zoro.” Robin nodded at him as she slide into the booth next to him, eyeing his book, “Do you mind?”  


Zoro shook his head and pushed it towards her, it was a history book, of course she’d love it. He folded his arms behind his head and leaned back. Many people questioned why he had stayed at Grand Line University when he had graduated at the age of 14 six years ago, and his answer was always the same, his friends. Why would he leave the people who understood and stayed by him? Besides, he could further his studies at the university just fine, he was even offered a teaching position, which he happily took.  


Slowly the rest of the group filled the large booth, and it took him a while to realize Usopp and Luffy were still standing, along with another person.  


“This is Sanji! He recently enrolled in classes here! He’s cook!” Luffy announced happily, shaking the man’s shoulders. Zoro gave the man a quick look before closing his eyes again, blonde, skinny, boring.  


He heard shuffling as the three sat own, feet nudging his as they shifted down the plastic bench.  


“So you’re the genius that’s a complete dick I’m guessing, wow, they weren’t kidding. You really do have green hair.” A husky voice said mockingly. Zoro kept his face smooth and his eyes closed. He could hear Usopp frantically shushing the man, but he didn’t pay any attention. The guy obviously didn’t care that he was overstepping some kind of line, “So, is it true that mathematician’s only friends are like the square root of negative one?”  


Zoro felt the smile creeping along his face, so the guy knew a bit of math, “Why? Because they’re all imaginary?”  


He heard Robin chuckle lightly and Usopp gasp, “You can make math jokes?”  


“Don’t you guys? What’s the point of having nerdy friends if you don’t make fun of them?” Sanji asked, Zoro snorted and shook his head, eyes still closed, “The only math some of them understand is addition of money.”  


“You really are an asshole, aren’t you mosshead” Sanji scoffed, kicking his shoe lightly under the table. Zoro opened his eyes and glared at the blonde, trying the think of a comeback even an idiotic cook would understand when he saw the man’s eyebrows. He stared. There was no way in hell.  


“Why is he staring?” Sanji asked, leaning closer to Usopp, Zoro’s eyes following him. Usopp looked up from his sketchpad and glanced between the two, “I don’t know, Zoro, why are you staring at Sanji?”  


Without a word Zoro stood and leaned over the table, grabbing Sanji’s face with both hands. The blonde, and everyone else for that matter, was shocked. Sanji didn’t know what to do, so he opted for sitting still, his face held firmly in the mosshead’s hands. When Usopp had said the guy was weird, he didn’t think he’d meant this weird.  


He glanced up at the amazed face that was so close to his and to his irritation, found his eyes weren’t even examining his face, they were fixed on his eyebrows. Oh, his eyebrows.  


“Look asshole, if you have a problem or some kind of wise guy crack about the eyebrows, let me tell you, it’s probably not funny, and I’ve heard them all.” Sanji snarled, putting his hands up to push the guy away, but a happy laugh stopped him. Everyone at the table stared in awe as the usually stoic and glaring mathematician giggled to himself.  


He raised a finger and traced Sanji’s eyebrow, stopping at the center of the swirl, “The golden spiral.”  


He tore his eyes away from Sanji’s forehead and looked into the blondes eyes, “Your eyebrows are the golden spiral.”  


Everyone looked at him, and Zoro frowned, looked away from Sanji, seemingly upset no one found his discovery as amazing as he did.  


“What’s the golden spiral?” Luffy asked around a mouthful of meat. Zoro sighed and slid off the table and back into his seat, “Seriously guys? The golden spiral? The Fibonacci numbers?”  


The green haired man looked around exasperatedly, how do they not get this? “Come on guys, this is high school, no this is elementary school math! I did this when I was seven! The Fibonacci numbers are numbers in an integer sequence, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and so on. The numbers add up to get the next term, one and one equal two, one and two equal three, two and three equal five and so on.”  


The group stared, “What does that have to do with Sanji-bro’s eyebrows?” Franky asked. Zoro sighed and ran his hands over his face, he needed smarter friends.  


“His eyebrows are an approximation of the golden spiral, which is created by drawing circular arcs and connecting the opposite corners in the Fibonacci tiling, and the sizes of the boxes follow the sequence…”  


Everyone tuned him out, they knew him well enough to know he would go on and on forever, like he tended to do whenever he spoke about something scientific or mathematical.  


Everyone, except Sanji. He stared in wonder at the man in front of him whose eyes were bright and excited as he explained one complicated math theory that led to another, all from Sanji’s eyebrows. This man was incredible. And attractive.  


No wonder Usopp had said he would like him.  


zszszs  


Years later people, when asked Sanji if he even actually liked the guy, all he did was smile. They fought constantly, Zoro making snide remarks about the blonde’s intelligence and Sanji snapping back with an insult hurled about the man’s looks or social skills. Neither of them meant the insults, they were just a way for them to communicate with each other.  


Sanji was asked the question a lot, and thought he never answered verbally, his actions spoke loudly enough. When Zoro started speaking English words in a way no one understood, he stood by him a nodded his head. No one could miss the smile he flashed at the other man when they were fighting, and everyone else could see Zoro send the same smile back at him.  


If it weren’t for the matching wedding rings on their fingers, people would probably think they were best friends.  


Luffy smiled at his friends as they stood across the room, and then turned to grin at Usopp, “Remember when they met?”  


Usopp nodded and smirked, “I told you I was the best matchmaker ever! Did I tell you about the time I matched up…”  


Luffy tuned out his curly haired friend and looked back at his two other friends. Zoro had his hand on Sanji’s face, and was stroking the cook’s eyebrow. As weird as it seemed to others, Luffy knew it was Zoro’s way of saying I love you, just like the names ‘Fibonacci brow’ and ‘Mossy math head’ were nicknames they said only because they loved each other.  


The golden spiral, one of natures miracles, had caused this miracle.  


**Author's Note:**

> I identify with Zoro in that I need smarter friends. No one gets my math jokes
> 
> I do not give permission for this or any of my work to be posted on third party websites such as Goodreads and e-booktree.com, it is meant for private enjoyment of the reader and not to be broadcasted or posted on any other site other than this account on AO3, MiddleTownDreams on fanfiction, or my tumblr zo-ro-roronoa. . Finally do not post this anywhere else without my permission and don't try and pass it off as your work. Thank you.
> 
> Fic recs are okay, in fact I encourage them ;)


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